Carrot Top

Information

Carrot Top
Luxor Las Vegas
3900 Las Vegas Blvd. S.
Las Vegas, NV 89109
800-557-7428
website
$50 and up
Mon, Wed-Sun 8:30pm
Vegas4Visitors Grade: B

At a Glance

What is it?

A set from comedian Carrot Top that focuses heavily on props, videos, sound effects, and offbeat observations about the human condition.

Where is it?

At a cabaret style theater at Luxor on the South Strip.

Is it worth the cost?

It actually is. You don’t actually need to be a fan of the comedian’s brand of humor to have a good time.

Why should I see this show?

Because you need a good laugh and won’t be embarassed to admit that they came from Carrot Top.

What else do I need to know?

The show can sometimes veer into crassness so you should leave your kids (and occasionally your good taste) at home.

What’s the bottom line?

Carrot Top? Really? Surprisingly, the answer is “Yes.”

Full Review

It’s probably unfair to say that I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Carrot Top’s show at Luxor but there it is. I mean, let’s be honest: when you try to rate comic genius, Carrot Top, to most people, will fall somewhere on the list near Howie Mandel and Yakov Smirnov, people whose careers made them into bigger punch lines than the ones they actually delivered in their shows.

But Carrot Top’s manic energy, off-the-wall observations, and generally good natured sense of humor make this show an entertaining diversion. It’s not the best comedy show in the world and not even the best in Vegas, but it made me laugh and that has to be worth something.

For the uninitiated, Carrot Top (given name Scott Thompson) is mostly known as the guy with the wild head of Sideshow Bob orange hair who was featured heavily in the stand-up comedy boom of the 90s, did a few movies, a lot of phone company commercials, and relies heavily on props to make people laugh. That hair is still there as are the props, filling trunks that take up a big chunk of the Luxor stage.

What comes out of the trunks is better than the cliché arrow through the head wackiness but not by a lot. You must enjoy things like a special envelope to mail your tax returns in shaped like a hand giving the middle finger salute or a special microphone for a certain (allegedly) drug-addled singer shaped like a bong to get into the spirit of things here. That sounds less funny on paper but the non-stop, rapid-fire, random silliness of the whole thing is infectious.

The entire show is not just about props, of course. He also uses video and sound effects and even, occasionally, actually tells jokes. Country music and NASCAR are big targets but he doesn’t discriminate, poking fun at just about every identifiable person and group you can think of including himself.

There are a few wince-inducing ventures into the tasteless but nothing went all the way to hateful, a welcome relief considering the acts of most Vegas stand-up acts who rely heavily on misogyny and homophobia to appeal to a lowest common denominator. There were a few jokes a the expense of women and gays but the worst they ever seemed was tired (“Brokeback Mountain jokes? Really?) and not actually mean-spirited.

So yes, Carrot Top’s show was surprisingly entertaining and at $50 a relative bargain. Now if he can just do something about that hair.

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